Dr. Bernie Krause, creator of Wild Sanctuary, demonstrates that every living organism produces sound. This presentation focuses on the symbiotic ways in which the sounds of one organism affect and interrelate with other organisms, local and regional, within a given habitat.

Learn about unusual soundscapes and their relevance to preserving natural sounds worldwide. Biophony--the notion that all sounds in undisturbed natural habitats fit into unique niches--will be used to illustrate the ways in which animals taught humans to dance and sing.

Bernie Krause

Since 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause has traveled the world recording and archiving the sounds of creatures and environments large and small. Working at the research sites of Jane Goodall (Gombe, Tanzania), Biruta Galdikas (Camp Leakey, Borneo), and Dian Fossey (Karisoke, Rwanda), he identified the concept of biophony (a/k/a The Niche Hypothesis) based on the relationships of individual creatures to the total biological soundscape within a given habitat.

Dr. Krause was Scientific Director (appointed by NOAA) of the operation that rescued Humphrey the humpback whale from the Sacramento Delta (1985) using processed feeding sounds of the same species to lure him to the ocean. Through his company, Wild Sanctuary, he has recorded over 50 natural soundscape CDs, and creates interactive environmental sound sculpture commissions for museums and other public spaces throughout the world.

Utilizing proprietary delivery technology, his sound sculpture commissions can be heard at the American Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC), the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Chicago Science Museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (near Mystic, CT), the California Academy of Sciences, the Flint River Center in Albany, Georgia, Natural World Museum (SF), and five new installations at the World Financial Center (NYC opening 6 October 2006). Krause is currently commissioned to prepare a series of tropical and sub-tropical rainforest installations for the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park scheduled to open in the Fall of 2008.

During his life as a professional studio musician, he replaced Pete Seeger in the Weavers (1963), and with his late music partner, Paul Beaver, introduced the synthesizer to pop music and film. Their work can be heard on over 250 albums and 135 feature films released between 1967 and 1980.

Dr. Bernie Krause, creator of Wild Sanctuary, explains how he recorded audio signals emitting from the trunk of a cottonwood tree while trying to record bat emissions. He decided the song derives from cells dying as a result of sucking in too much air while trying to maintain osmotic pressure.

Dr. Bernie Krause, creator of Wild Sanctuary, demonstrates that these animal's may posses a degree of emotional depth by playing a sorrowful call from a male beaver after its entire family was killed by humans.

"The world’s really crying out to us for help," he says of habitat destruction.